Flowers for Wheatley
by TheUnsigned
Summary: A story loosely based off the novel "Flowers for Algernon". Without his intelligence dampening programing, the human Wheatley is actually a very intelligent man. While he and Chell have a life together, it is one doomed to failure.


**Title:** Flowers For Wheatley

**Rating**: T

**Pairings/Warnings:** Wheatley x Chell, I discuss the idea of them having sex but it's not described in any detail.

**Disclaimer:** It's Valve's

**AN:** Another Kinkmeme one. I wanted to write for this prompt because Flowers for Algernon is one of my favorite books and since the other writer who filled it didn't know the story this can at least be different. Also, Robin Walker, at my request e-mailed my fiancee and congratulated him on getting into my University. I'm here to brag about it.

Also I think this is the second Portal story I've tried writing where I show my love obsession with crossword puzzles.

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><p>It was horrible irony that the one time GLaDOS had to admit to being wrong, it was with regards to one of the few honest and kind things she had done.<p>

When Chell had returned to Aperture after her first night on the surface, staring at the small satellite that orbited the moon and demanded, in her own silent way that Wheatley be rescued from space, GLaDOS had complied. Chell did not quite know why the AI had so willingly agreed to her demands. Chell suspected she had lied about deleting Caroline. Maybe she just really had wanted to reanimate the dead.

Whatever the reason, GLaDOS had the science to take that metal ball and make it human and so she did.

"Chell, you'll never guess what I did today!" Wheatley rushed into the house. "I was lying you know, before when I said I could read Machiavelli. I couldn't read until you taught me how, but I found it at the library. Excellent things, libraries. You don't have to even pay for the books you take as long as you promise to bring them back. So I really did read it today!" He displayed the book proudly before her.

That was the first moment that Chell realized that without the programming that made him a 'moron', Wheatley was actually very smart. Not only very smart. Probably a genius.

Next week, Chell came home from the small job she had in the community. She worked five nights a week at the grocery cashier. Wheatley was once again excited. He always was when he discovered something new about human life.

"I got a job today. Over at that computer place, the one two blocks away from Main Street? I saw it in the paper and they said they wanted people who were interested and I was so I went over there. Then they asked me questions and found out I'm very good at it, you know so they told me to come back on Monday and every day after that just like you work at the grocery store. I'm starting after the weekend and I'm supposed to be building custom machines for people to check their e-mail and work. I think I'm going to learn that email and internet thing next. I always knew I wasn't a moron. And, look at this. I went back to that wonderful library spot and got some recipe books. So now I know how to make all this food and we can have different foods every day."

Chell smiled. The lasagna he'd made did look perfect. She herself was learning all sorts of new things herself now that all there was to eat wasn't potatoes. This was what life was supposed to be like, in her opinion. This was what she was waiting for all this time. They had a life together.

It didn't last. It was a slow process, but the first trouble was that Wheatley actually started to surpass her in intelligence. It didn't take long for it to frustrate her.

"Well Chell, that's just not right. Your answer to fourteen down on this puzzle is a common error. The answer is actually courgette, not zucchini. That's why you couldn't get six down. If you use 'courgette', then six is obviously 'chair.'"

He sounded so damn smug about it that Chell gave him a hurt look and flounced out of the kitchen, flinging the paper on the table.

"Chell?" Wheatley called after her. She sighed. He was confused. He didn't understand how his intelligence made her feel inadequate next to him, but she felt she had to describe it.

She pointed at her head and then at him and scowled. He gave her a strange look so she snatched up a notebook.

Wheatley picked up the page and stared at the simple scrawled message.

_I AM NOT A MORON._

His face fell. He understood. Making him look so downtrodden was heartbreaking. The floodgates opened.

They sat together, Chell crying and Wheatley holding her and suddenly things were alright again. Wheatley went and got one of their bottles of wine out and they sat in bed drinking it. Something about the alcohol changed Wheatley from the intelligent person he had become to his old moronic sphere self. Of course, most people tend to behave strangely when drinking so Chell didn't think very much of it. She'd had a few glasses too, but it was like he reverted to his old moron self. It didn't stop them from making love.

Living with a genius instead of a moron came with its own new set of issues. Every so once in awhile, Wheatley would be positively too smug to deal with, but Chell had learned how to cope with it in a month. They lived together comfortably as a couple. It was everything she could have asked for.

It was around October when the coughing began. Wheatley had been so far extremely healthy so it was probably only natural his luck would run dry and he'd experience a flu.

Chell brought him chicken soup, orange juice, some over the counter cold pills and a book of crossword puzzles.

"Thank you. You're pretty good at this." He coughed again. "You should be a nurse maybe."

Chell smiled. It wasn't very often these days that she could do something for her companion that he couldn't do himself.

The cold didn't abate. Two weeks later it hadn't let up and the cough grew worse. Painful even. Wheatley was miserable and Chell eventually could do nothing more than take him to the doctor in the village. She was sat in the waiting room for far longer than was normal before the doctor arrived and asked for her.

"Miss Chell is it? Could you come into the office please?"

Chell got up and walked into the doctor's lab. Both men looked grim.

"There is no easy way to tell you this, Chell. The illness your husband…"

"Partner." Wheatley corrected. They never had gotten married.

"Your partner is experiencing a form of brain cancer. The coughing was at one point a cold but now it is being triggered by the tumor. We can't operate. It's been going on too long. I'm very sorry Chell, if we'd found out a month or two earlier maybe there would have been something I could do. I wish I could tell you something more optimistic but given the progression of the disease, Wheatley has about a month at best. He's being quite brave about his fate, but I'm going to tell you now, it's not going to be easy on him. I can prescribe some pain killers that might help."

There was nothing Chell could do but numbly take Wheatley home and take the prescription from the doctor. It was even more horrible to realize that the incessant coughing all the way home was probably painful from the tumor in his brain. It was all Chell could do to make salad for dinner. He did seem to feel better the first time he took the pills. He fell asleep after that.

Wheatley came out of the bedroom later and sat her down. "There is one solution."

She gazed at him.

"We could go back to GLaDOS. Get me put into my old sphere body."

Chell gazed at him. There were so many questions. Going back into the Sphere body would mean he would lose his newfound intelligence. How would they be together? A sphere couldn't make love to a human woman or work or support them. Certainly his job would notice if their star employee was suddenly a metal ball.

"Chell, I thought about this. A long time. Being smart isn't as important to me as being with you. I want you to take me back to GLaDOS. She'll actually do things if they're for you."

The next day, a man and a woman marched across a wheat field. Only the woman came back.

When Chell Redacted died (such an unusual last name wasn't it?), there was some weird computer with her that she'd apparently built. It was, as specified in her will, shut down on that day. Anyone who knew her always heard her talk to it, though no one could remember it speaking back.


End file.
